


To Yield Is Not Weak

by disasterhawke



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Awkward First Times, Character Study, Courtly Love, Courtship, Developing Relationship, Duty, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Intrigue, Kings & Queens, Married Alistair/Anora Mac Tir, Post-Dragon Age: Origins, Trust, Trust Issues, Widowed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:41:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23743207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disasterhawke/pseuds/disasterhawke
Summary: She may not like her new husband, but Anora Theirin is not about to let the world treat him like it has treated her. She will do whatever it takes to earn his trust. This is not quite what he expects.An Anora character study that explores her arranged marriage to her husband's bastard brother.
Relationships: Alistair/Anora Mac Tir, Anora Mac Tir/Cailan Theirin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 63





	To Yield Is Not Weak

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains a mild and non-explicit reference to the dubious consent present in an arranged marriage.

Behind them, the hall swells with the cheering of the guests. Some applaud, others simply call out in celebration; others jeer lasciviously, punctuating the otherwise jovial sound with the duty the two of them are now obliged to perform. It washes over Anora without effect. Most things seem to, these days.

But when Anora steps into the bedroom and glances over at her new husband, she realises that she is alone in her steadiness.

“I can’t do this,” Alistair says, stood in the chamber only as a result of the door being closed behind him. He brings his hands up and runs them through his hair, ceremonial armour creaking.

Anora Mac - no, Anora Theirin once more - does not like her new husband. It is not because his personality is unbearable, or because he is unseemly, or violent, or terrible. In fact, he is kind and strong, handsome and funny. But few of these things make one a good king. He has no tact, no guile, and not the first notion of how to run a kingdom. Alistair does not know the basic rate of taxation, the common trade routes across Ferelden, or even the Alienage laws (that he has now stomped on by welcoming an Elder into his court). It is as if someone made him to be a thorn in her plans, a spanner in the works of every idea she’s ever had.

And as his face creases up in agony, she recognises every inch of the expression.

“Sit down.”

“No, I need to go, I can’t -”

“I said sit down. Now.”

He flinches at the hard edge in her voice, capitulating at once. Anora steps around the chair and kneels before him, reaching for the buckles on his greaves.

“Look, you don’t have to do that. Please don’t do that. I don’t want this, any of this. I’ll...sneak out of a window, or something. We’re not that far up. And no one’ll be in the stables at this time of night. I’ll just sleep there.”

“I’m so glad you’ve finally shown an inclination for speechmaking,” Anora says, ignoring his attempts to stop her from flicking buckle after buckle open. They aren't the attempts they could be. He could flatten her if he wanted to. He doesn't. “But this is not the time. Right now you are going to listen to me.”

He nods, silently. Perhaps there’s hope for him yet. Or perhaps she’s just finally managed to weaponise her vocal chords against him.

“You are the King of Ferelden, and I am its Queen, and yes, there are certain things that are expected of us. Yes, we must consummate this marriage. Yes, we must do so repeatedly, until we have an heir, and perhaps longer still, to ensure the nation’s hopes rest upon more than one soul.” She places his now-removed bracers to the side, neatly aligned with his greaves. “But if you think for one moment that we are doing that now, you are mistaken.”

Alistair winces, and flinches away from her as she reaches to help with his breastplate. “I know you hate me, Anora. You don’t need to be that brutal about it.”

“I was not done, Alistair. It is rude to interrupt your wife."

“Oh.”

“Lift your arms up.” He doesn’t move, and she glares at him. “Do you want to sit in full plate all evening? Lift. Thank you. Now, listen, and I will explain to you how this will work. We will both sleep here, in this room. We will make it appear that we have fulfilled our duty. And we will repeat that for as long as we have to.”

The two of them are standing now, his breastplate in his hands. He places it to the side and rights himself, looking at her in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“Do you trust me, Alistair?”

“Maker, no.”

Anora smiles. “You should never,” she says, folding her hands together before her, “have to give yourself to someone you do not trust.”

Her voice creaks halfway through the sentence; she saves it, but he notices, and it makes her want to punch the wall. A Mac Tir is never weak. Never vulnerable. But there are few times when you are more vulnerable than this.

“I...thank you,” Alistair sighs, suddenly looking far older than his years. “Wow. Honestly, I thought you were going to, you know, grab me by the ear and march me over to the bed until I’d managed to - ehm. Well.”

“What a lovely image.”

“Yeah, well, no offence, but you’re not exactly the picture of compassion. Or haven’t been, before now.” He frowns again, peering at her unscrupulously. “What changed?”

Turning her head, Anora looks into the fire. “Cailan did not let me wait until I trusted him. I will not do that to you, Alistair.”

His lips form an ‘oh’ that never makes any sound, and his eyes dart over to the bed - the bed that is the same bed that has been here, in the King’s suite, for decades. The same bed where she did her duty as she was meant to, silently and compliantly and with no regard for herself. Cailan was not a bad man. He, too, was gentle and warm, and could inspire a crowd of hundreds with a smile.

But he saw the world as it was made for him - unendingly yielding - not as it was made for others, hard and remorseless.

“Thank you,” Alistair says again. He reaches out to take her hand, as he did when they walked up to the Revered Mother together, and this time she lets him. Just for a moment. Just long enough to tense her fingers in the briefest acknowledgement, before they turn and ready themselves for sleep.

In the morning, Anora politely informs Alistair that he will need to ejaculate onto the sheets so that the servants spread the proper rumours, and steps into the dressing room to allow him privacy. The only moment more awkward than her departure is the one where he mumbles that it’s safe to come back in, as if she didn’t already know from the sound he had failed to conceal in the final moments of his task.

“Rub it into the sheet and leave it uncovered,” Anora says, moving towards the door to summon Erlina. “It will dry soon enough.”

“Ew.”

“If the servants are not abuzz with talk of our wild night of passion, Alistair, you will have to endure a lecture from half a dozen people, including Eamon and Teagan, who will attempt to instruct you at length about how to take your wife. Now rub it into the sheet.”

He doesn’t protest after that.

Anora spends the day politely averting her eyes and raising a hand to cover an absent blush whenever anyone mentions the King. At lunch, Erlina tells her that the servants are confident that they’ll finally have a Theirin heir within the month. They keep talking this way almost every day for a fortnight. Until the morning she wakes up with a rush of uncomfortable realisation.

"Are you going to leave, or…" Alistair says, pink cheeked, gesturing towards the bed he's still lying in. A few feet away, Anora sits on the opposite edge.

"Ah. You do not have to do that today, Alistair. It will give us away."

He frowns. "Huh?"

They have made progress, these past two weeks. He has proven much more willing to listen to her since finding out her advice really is better than the other 'help' he receives. There is a difference, she reasons, between knowing someone is a good ruler and seeing it. Until now, Alistair has never seen her speaking to their people. She is good at it. This is a fact.

Another fact is that Anora is terrible at allowing anyone, except perhaps Erlina, to see her as human. Which makes her explanation come out through gritted teeth.

"I began bleeding last night. If you continue to make it appear that we are having sex, no one will believe it."

She expects him to be clueless, as men always are - Cailan certainly had been, and her father was hardly sympathetic - but something very different happens. Alistair nods.

"Because of the um, rags, right? When we were in the Deep Roads one time, Kallian got stuck without any and Oghren and I had to cough up our spare shirts. Though I guess you have something much, er, better. Do you need anything? I can get Wynne to make you some pain potions or something. Or...just...go? Anora?"

He trails off as her silence goes on, her tongue held by the realisation that she doesn't really know him at all. Her instinct is to tell him to leave. To hide the pain in her abdomen, in her back, the fatigue heavy in her limbs, the desperate need for a warm fire. But they need to trust each other. And trust, her father once told her, was built upon calculated risk.

"Actually," she says, turning to smile slightly at him, "I really could do with some kind of potion."

Cailan would have scoffed and told her to call for Erlina. By protocol, she  _ should _ just ask Erlina. But Alistair does not scoff. He isn’t like Cailan - she sees that now - but neither is he the anti-Cailan, a man without strength. Perhaps that calculated risk you have to take is its own form of compassion. At least, the smile that lights up Alistair’s face as he realises he can help certainly makes her feel, oddly, like she is the one being compassionate.

Fifteen minutes later he returns with not just a potion, but a mug of warm tea that Wynne says will help, plus a plate of leftover chocolates from last night’s dinner. Later that day, Anora learns that he stole them out of the kitchens.

After that, it becomes something of a dance. A trade of small risks.

When the first anniversary of Ostegar arrives, they travel through to the Korcari Wilds for a series of ceremonies that neither of them want to be at. Quietly, and with the help of the remaining Grey Wardens and a mildly surprised Eamon, Anora manages to arrange for a gap in Alistair’s schedule. He returns to their tent after the private memorial for Duncan and hugs her for the first time. Anora uses the minute he spends apologising to come to terms with how much she’s missed being held.

The anniversary serves, with time passing ever on, to remind their court that they are yet to produce an heir. During one meeting, one of the Banns turns to their companion and murmurs that perhaps Anora is simply barren, and ought to be cast off. He has the misfortune to say this in earshot of Alistair, who - in an unexpected display of cleverness - acknowledges the man’s challenge and explains that he’d be honoured to duel him.

He wins in five seconds flat, shoving the man to the floor with a single shield charge and pointing his blade at his throat. When Alistair sheaths his sword, a hush falls over the chamber. Anora leads the applause, then ushers the two of them out of the meeting.

“Maker’s breath, I’m sorry,” Alistair says, wiping sweat that isn’t there from his brow. “I really messed that up, didn’t I?”

It's unlikely anyone can hear them, but Anora knows for sure they’re being watched through the doorway. She stands onto her toes, and tells herself that what she is about to do is nothing but another calculated application of compassion. There is no desire behind it save to work the two of them towards a place of trust. There is no warmth that runs through her body as she presses her lips to his, and no sparks that jump at her hip when he clutches a hand there, pulling her close.

“No,” Anora says, pressing her hand against his cheek, “you were perfect.”

Of course, she’s still careful to explain precisely  _ why _ his mad gambit worked, and all of the times it would have had the opposite effect, but as he spends the entire time staring dazedly at her mouth she isn’t entirely sure the lesson has taken root.

The last risk is one they take together.

Rebuilding Denerim is taking a long time, but nowhere is it taking longer than in the Alienage. Despite Kallian’s work and position in their court, the elves hardly began the Blight in a good position. Losing half their number to slavers and a rapist bastard of an evil Arl's son has cost them, deeply. Kallian spends weeks trying to convince Anora and Alistair to come and visit, insisting that it will help with morale - if she can come to trust humans, then her people can as well. Their personal guard refuse for weeks.

When they finally agree, Anora quickly comes to realise why they were so reticent. The moment the royal entourage arrives in Denerim’s Alienage, the eyes of dozens of elves bore into her. Anora has been afraid before, but not like this. This time she feels as though she deserves it; she likely does. Until meeting Kallian, she had not exactly been a friend to the elven people. She had not spat upon them in the street or called them knife-ear at every turn either, but she was one of the people with the power to change things. In many ways, she had failed them far more than if she had simply done so.

Eventually the eyes become too much for her, and she reaches to take Alistair’s hand. He looks at her oddly. “It makes us look more relatable,” she explains, both a truth and a lie all at once.

It doesn’t let up. Anora knows, in her gut, that something is going to go very wrong. But it doesn’t happen when they stand next to Kallian and make speeches, or when they go down the line of elves, shaking hands and talking. This is something Alistair has always been good at, so it goes easily, especially as he’s met many of them before whilst saving them from slavers. It lulls her into a little more security.

Then the thugs jump them, when they're stood in a side street waiting to move to their next appointment.

There are eight attackers. Alistair is armed, but has no shield; they only have two guards with them, who are the first to die as the armoured elves lunge. Though she is not a warrior, Anora does not need to be to make the calculation. Her husband is perhaps the greatest warrior in Ferelden, but even he can only stand against so many.

“Anora,” Alistair says, drawing his sword and beginning to parry, “Run. You have to run!”

It is protocol. It is what she should do. But there are eight of them, and only one of him, and his armour is ceremonial. It will shatter the moment they strike it. He knows this. He knows this and he does not care, but Anora cares. In the shaky breath that she draws, she cares very deeply. Besides - a Mac Tir does not run.

“Disarm the one on the left.”

“Why are you not running!”

“Disarm him, Alistair! Trust me!”

He does better - even as two of the thugs grab him by the right side and stab into his almost entirely useless armour, Alistair swaps his sword into his left hand and cuts the elf’s arm off at the elbow. Ducking away from the three elves who are charging her, Anora moves under Alistair’s arm and plucks the falling dagger from the dismembered hand. She takes another breath. She can do this. She is a Mac Tir.

Anora stabs the screaming elf in the gut and pulls the dagger out, hurling it at the archer at the back. It lands, but to get the bow she’ll have to run past the ones fighting Alistair, stepping forward and past where he’s defending. If he doesn’t manage to stop them, they will cut her down as she does. She glances over her shoulder at her husband - and trusts him.

Two of the elves lunge for her, but Alistair lets out a battle cry that holds them in shock. Anora almost trips over her skirts as she runs through the mud, but rights herself, pulling the bow into her hand and nocking an arrow. When she draws it, Alistair’s eyes latch onto hers, his face lit up into a brilliant grin.

Her first arrow misses, muddy fingers slipping on the string, but the second takes one of the elves right in the back. They have seven of the eight dead before the rest of their guard charge in past her, managing to pin the last one down and take command of the rest - some of whom are not quite dead, though it won’t take long.

“Fuck, Anora,” Kallian says, daggers in her hands as she arrives unusually late for the Hero of Ferelden. “You got that one in the eye.”

That elf had charged her, breaking away from the group. She’d panicked and let the arrow go. She’d heard the impact where the eye popped, the arrowhead piercing through into the brain. Acid rises in the back of Anora’s throat, and the activity around her becomes suddenly out of focus. There is nothing but the grip of her fingers around the bow, the arrow that has now snapped in her other hand, the -

“Hey. Deep breath. I had everyone go make a perimeter. Kallian’s watching us from down the street but no one else is here. All of the bodies are gone, Anora. You can open your eyes. It’s okay. Just keep breathing, yeah? I mean, you should do that all the time, but especially now, because - well, it’ll help. Trust me.”

Anora realises that the bow her hand is clutched around is oddly sized. It’s also moving. It isn’t a bow at all - it’s his arm. The arrow she snapped in her right hand has been replaced with a fistful of broken breastplate instead. She blinks; hot tears roll down her dusty cheeks.

“I do trust you,” she says, hands shaking. Like a blanket being pulled away on a cold morning, the sounds of commotion begin to steal away the silence. “We need to get back to the palace.”

“Are you ready to?”

She catches her bottom lip between her teeth and tastes blood that was already there.

“Because I don’t think you’re ready to, Anora. I think you just killed someone for the first time and you need to breathe. And I know you. I know you wouldn’t want to go out there if you weren’t ready to look like nothing had happened at all.”

Anora closes her eyes. “Not the first time.” He falls silent, and Anora lets go of the mess of his breastplate to hold onto his other arm. Neither of them have armour on anymore; one of them feels damp with blood. “When I was fourteen, we were travelling to Denerim. Orlesian assassins took us on the road. Father made me hide in the carriage, but he didn’t see one of them coming up behind him.”

“You saved his life,” Alistair says, brushing hair out of her face. “Most people wouldn’t have been brave enough. Oh, and - for the record, I’m pretty sure you just saved me too.”

“Thank you.”

He kisses her on the top of the head. “It was nothing. I did just spend a year saving the world, you know. Most days I’d done this four times before breakfast.”

The creak in his voice and the way he grips her just a little too tightly as he says it makes Anora smile. “I meant,” she says, wiping her eyes, “for trusting me.”

They stand there for several minutes longer, holding onto each other, until Anora declares it time for them to get out of the mud. She does not pick up the bow again, but she does not make any attempt to clean the blood from herself either. They do not need to know that she fought, but let them see that she is a survivor. Anora and Alistair stand back in the centre of the Alienage and reassure the rest of the elves that they hold nothing against them.

That night, after a bath that reveals cuts and bruises Anora hadn’t even realised she’d gotten, she climbs into bed with her husband and lets him hold her. Not as a risk. Not as a gesture of trust that is designed just to earn his in return. Not to push them a step closer to producing an heir. Just because it is comforting, and because she wants him to.

When Anora wakes up, Alistair’s body is pressed up against her back, his arms wrapped around her waist. Her nightdress has ridden up, and she can feel his face pressed against her neck, and one of his hands is achingly close to her breast.

“Oh, fuck. Sorry. I -”

Anora grabs his arms and holds him there before he can pull away. “No.”

“Riiiight. You know, that’s kind of a mixed message, what with…” Alistair trails off abruptly, not because she’s interrupted him, but because she has just moved. Just a small adjustment of her hips, but one that makes him groan loudly. “...Maker, I am  _ so _ sorry.”

“You can keep apologising for that, Alistair, or you can make use of it.”

“You...don’t mean that. Not really. Ha ha, very funny Anora, what a time to get a sense of humour.”

She curls the fingers of her right hand around her nightgown, causing it to bunch even further, until it lies entirely around her waist. And rolls her hips again, this time with clear, deliberate movements, closing her eyes at the feeling of him pressed right up against her. Andraste’s grace, he’s so warm.

“...ngh. You’re not joking.”

“I’m not joking.”

“But you’re sure? It’s just - surprising.”

Anora smiles, and twists, looking over her shoulder with the wide-eyed, doeish look that had gotten her through the early years of politics, before people knew not to underestimate her. She lifts one hand, running it up and into his hair, and speaks in her politest voice.

“Oh! Yes, I just thought of the most surprising thing.” He opens his mouth to reply, but Anora doesn’t let him. She takes one more calculated risk. “I’m not wearing any underwear. The only thing stopping you from fucking me into this mattress is that ridiculous loincloth you insist on wearing.”

She isn’t sure what makes it more worth it: the expression on his face that goes from astonished to predatory, or the fact that she spends none of that morning standing awkwardly in the closet.

Of course Alistair does spend the rest of the day privately teasing her for having a dirty mouth, when in fact it’s probably the rudest thing she’s ever said to a person, and the only reason he couldn’t see how embarrassed she was is that he was too busy doing as she’d suggested. But he doesn’t do it in public, and he doesn’t push it when she does turn pink, and when they go to bed that night he devotes himself to learning all of the things she can’t say that she wants. Nervously, and with too much smart talk for her liking, but he does it all the same.

Cailan never did that - but that thought is not one that goes through Anora’s head. Not that night, and not in any of the nights that come after, because there’s no reason to compare them now the wound in her heart has healed. Anora understands something that her father did not - trusting people makes you stronger, not weaker. It takes risks because risks are what courage is made of.

Years pass and the world descends into a new kind of madness before Anora places her hand to a swollen belly and feels her child kick in protest.

She doesn’t regret a second.


End file.
